Prayers

Happy New Year!

I am not an atheist, nor am I a pious lady. Just a simple believe-in-God kind. Someone who tries to pray every morning, but misses more often than should. It is not a part-of-life like it is for my parents.

But my praying habits are not like those who mentioned in the Hindi doha "dukh mein sumiran sab karein, sukh mein kare na koy.." [everyone remembers God in sorrow, no one thinks of him in times of joy]. My prayers have been in all times- sad/happy/neutral.

Some in family pray first thing in the morning, some twice a day, others during the day (in between a commute or in the waiting rooms with praying beads), some by scribbling Lord's name in notebooks and a few towards the end of the day before lying down for sleep. Schools had morning assemblies, which means that for 12 years, I prayed every morning. Most of it was just singing, but it was consistent. A routine.

Now my prayers are less songs/hymns/mantras and more words. Words, that change with time, and which are either a request or gratitude for a request fulfilled. Words about wordly affairs like work, visa, marriage, travel etc. Occasionally about bestowing 'sadbuddhi' (loose translation=good brains) to my flatmates :P (funny but earnest request).

Elders say that praying leads to feeling positive. Never prayed so fervently to feel much but anytime I see my baby niece folding hands and flashing all of her 8 teeth when someone says 'jai jai', there is a sudden wave of positive that flows all across me. I admit I'm drawn to a gurudwara for the halwa (prasad) & to a church for the architecture and whenever I go to mandirs, jumping up to ring the bells draws maximum of my focus. But a quiet chat with God, after dressing up in the morning, is very concentrated amount of feel-good I feel.

And now, since my brain is not able to end this post in any other way, here's a true story-
Class I, age 6: my teacher had asked me if I knew what my name means. My reply was that Vinti means prayer to God!

Movie Review: The Sky is Pink

source: Google Images (duh!)

The Sky is Pink

Director: Shonali Bose

Starring: Priyanka Chopra Jonas; Farhan Akhtar, Zaira Wasim and Rohit Saraf

Based On: a real life story of Aisha Chaudhary (the montage in the end is the actual short film)

Review:

The movie is filmed like a train of thoughts. Or a string of memories. It toggles between past and present, Delhi and London, before and after.

It is story of parents- whose child is born without an immune system, because of a genetic disorder. It is also a story of a brother-who grows up awaiting his younger sister's imminent death.

The movie touches upon so many sensitive topics- abortion, disease, transplants, psychotic break-down, death and grief. 

While the doctors recommended the child remain in isolation, to avoid any chance of infection; it is really the isolation in which her family members lead their lives that leaves a mark. In the face of it, they all were together in good and bad times. But really, each one was on their own. 

The mother (Aditi) had dedicated her day and night to looking after her girl, with a singular focus to provide her baby with every emotion and experience. 

The father (Niren) had spent all his life working harder to earn money and happiness for his family, putting the brave face that dads do; so that their families cannot see the inner crushing of soul. From someone who first thought of aborting the kid fearing a complication, to someone who would risk a transplant just so that his daughter's life can be extended by a few more years, the man changed a lot between Chandani Chowk and London  .

The brother (Ishaan) who was the kid who got separated from his mom at a young age, who grew up to being the cool big bro and finally the son who lent his lap to his grieving father when the time comes.

+ve points: 

1. The brilliance of the movie is that all the above sad story arcs are narrated humorously by the deceased girl herself; delivering grown up, heavy content in the teen, take-it-easy lingo. 

2. Some tracks from the movie that I particularly identified with include:

(i) The radio station bit, shot in Southall, where Niren gets rewarded for his faith in humanity

(ii) the instance where Aditi reproaches the house help to be extra cautious while preparing food for her daughter- the expressions of actors playing the cooks are so real, it is not just a movie scene but an actual scene from any household.

(iii) the teen pool party where Ishaan would rather jump in the pool than being nagged by his mom to play a matchmaker between his classmate and his sister.

My Verdict: A must watch.

My other movie reviews☺️

Just Because.

I wrote my first piece when I was in class 4th. That was a poem. That followed with many other poems, short stories, a play and ultimately blogging.
While my writing style evolved from poetry to blog, the content changed from fiction to anecdotes (and the occasional book/movie/tv-series reviews). My words were appreciated by some, dismissed as confusing by others and even led to a few fights back in the day (so proud!)

In the recent past, some of my posts mentioned how things weren't going my way, and then a hope that they will. Now, they have started to. But one thing I realized that has changed is not the circumstances, but my own interests.

From some-one who read so many books and wrote so many posts, I now am some-one who keeps on drafting posts in her mind but out of sheer laziness, seldom pens it down. Most of this is also attributed to the binge-watching of all the content being streamed now. I recently read 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood and earlier this year saw one of the cleverest shows on American politics- 'Veep' starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus; and have been meaning to review those two. But I haven't.

Last year, I had started learning Spanish on Duolingo (my favorite app of all times). Earlier this year, I started pursuing a Certificate course in Spanish Language and Culture. People asked me if I was doing this to get a job in a Spanish speaking land. The answer was no. This was my 'just because'. Started on really strong, but like many other interests, it took a backseat too- laziness fueled by infinite stream-able content again took over the steering wheels here.

This changes right now. I have an exam to sit for to achieve the first level of certification in Spanish. With this post, I am not going to vent out sad feelings or paint a story. What this post is for me to discipline myself to get back to the thing I started 'just because' and take it to the finish line. I decide to study all the 16 units and revise all of them, so that towards the end of this year, I ace the Spanish test, much like most tests that I have sat for. Not just that, I will publish at-least one blog-post written entirely in Spanish by the end of 2019. You know, just because.

Catching up with Time, Tide & Kaki

When I was a school going kid, today meant tricolor flags, Red Fort on Doordarshan, A.R. Rehman's Vande Mataram and the movie Roja.
Also, today could mean I getting dressed, my brother taking a bath, my failed attempt at tying the knots of Rakhi and our favorite cylinder-shaped Gulab Jamuns.
In general there used to be a feeling very much like the festival we were celebrating.

Today, however, the feeling was of a 24 hour break from the routine that I follow begrudgingly of going to office, being the corporate stooge, coming back to the house and dealing with the unpleasant flat-mates in a space crunched Mumbai apartment.
Actually, scratch that. The feeling was of waking up in my cousin's home, amazing meals of methi parantha, home made hummus & wheat pita and suji ka halwa.

Accompanying the taste bud pleasers was a very interesting conversation of what my 13 year old cousin aspires to study. The answer is History. And I'm proud of her. I could immediately see her in a futuristic version of Dan Brown novels.
While growing up, Social Studies never seemed to me as a subject for occupation. I guess many of my fellow countrymen had the same limited views and we have built an army of doctors and engineers and MBAs. No rants from my side, as I am one of the soldiers with two of these qualifications. In-fact, I am very happy with the way my academic life has been.

Aim is to have a similar, satisfying life ahead. One tiny bundle of joy making my life better one day at a time is my baby niece. By the way, ever since she started crawling, my brother- her dad- has this saying- "time, tide and kaki wait for none!"

And time flies! Here I am talking about my childhood & school, while also looking forward to next week when my other cousin- who's my age- is getting engaged. Surely YD is one of the first of many more nieces and nephews to come. Golly, and to think I used to go to school till a decade ago.

TV Review: TBBT Series Finale(s)

Many of my blog posts from the years 2015 and 2016 were TV reviews of Season 9 of 'The Big Bang Theory'. It is a series that I have consistently loved. Recently, the series concluded with its 12th and final season. And here once again is my review of the end.

Season 12, Episodes 22-24

The Gist: A wrap on Leonard's tough relationship with his mother, Sheldon's 'fear of changes' resurfaces and a much deserved Nobel.

Key Points:

1. Since the start of the series, Leonard's mother is portrayed as a lady Sheldon, who speaks her mind bluntly, treats Leonard as a specimen, develops friendships with others but her son, so on and so forth. But throughout, the woman seemed to be just another oddball of a genius, one of many in the series. Never once did I view Beverly as a negative character (and yes, the series had a couple- Priya Koothrapalli and Dr. Emily whatever-her-last-name-was). With the series nearing its end, it was nice to see mother-son duo truly acknowledge their parent-child relation and the love that actually is. A neat way to begin to end a neat show :)
2. Sheldon Cooper and Joey Tribbiani have 3 things in common- (a) I love them both (b) Sheldon has his spot on couch and Joey had his chair in front of Stevie the TV (see image) and (c) Both of them detest changes. Much like towards the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. end-where Rachel's decision to move to Paris and Chandler-Mon's plan to take home to suburbs-makes Joey lose his shit, Sheldon doesn't care for changes. Amy's new avatar, the broken elevator suddenly being fixed and fast and getting so much attention for his Nobel Prize achievement takes an expected toll on Shelly Cooper. This ultimately results in Sheldon realizing that change is the only constant and Penny getting.. (well that's for point 3).
3. ... pregnant. That was Penny-getting-pregnant. When in penultimate episode Sheldon is down because of all the changes, Shenny get together and drink. What happens to Sheldon is that he makes peace with the fact that changes will constantly happen. What happens to Penny is - one more time- Penny gets pregnant. The reason I am being repetitive here is because this once again is a neat way to end her character arc. 
4. Of course the last episode is the most significant one. ShAmy get their much deserved Nobel Prizes and Sheldon thanks everyone for being there for him. 

My Say: 

1. ShAmy are awarded Nobel Prizes for a theory they formulated on their wedding day.  What a poetic justice to the brainiac couple :) 
2. Howard and Bernie, a couple whose lives were the most normal, finally get a chance to be just-the-two-of-them-and-no-kids-and-no-Stuart when ShAmy invite them to Sweden to celebrate Nobel honour. They may have enjoyed their share of publicity on account of being "Sheldon and Amy's best friends" in all the Nobel Prize related news interviews, but Sheldon's Nobel speech does the most justice to them.
3. Leonard in the pilot had declared "Our babies would be smart and beautiful". Penny never saw herself as having children. Even in the earlier episodes of the last season, Leonard is so convinced that Penny does not want to have kids and he does, that he is ready to donate his sperm to Zack (Penny's beloved idiot ex). Digression- Leonard had tried to donate his sperm in the pilot episode too. Anyway, a drunk night with Sheldon charms Penny into pregnancy. The series had started with these two exchanging Hi, Hi, Hi, Hi! and ends sweetly with a baby on the way.
4. Raj has been conspicuously missing till now from my post. Raj had always been shown as the one who got and didn't get ladies. Women and love has been always the angle for Raj. Not being able to talk to women in a sober state, attracting ladies for being mocha colored and rich, falling in true love and getting heart broken, being with women who were either deaf gold-diggers or socially more awkward than him or morbid or who were practical and non-romantics. It has always been ladies ladies and ladies for Raj. This ends when Howard helps Raj realize that any woman who doesn't realize his love is woman who doesn't deserve his love. This realization happens when Raj is on the way to London; another parallel to F.R.I.E.N.D.S. where Rachel is on the way to Paris. Raj had almost given up his friends for a woman, much like Rach almost gave up her friends and Ross for a career. They both thought that that's what they wanted, but they were almost leaving behind something which was much more important. I like that the show does not end with a Raj who is finally married. Because not everyone gets to have that. A creepy Howard was the first to become a family man and a romantic Raj is still single.  

And with that, I guess I have said as much I can, right now. I love TBBT, I love it!

Language of Math of Science of Play of Work

A chapter:

Characters: Corporate top bosses from the Buy department and a Regional team from the Sell Department.

Plot-line: Sell has re-sold something which Buy has not bought yet. Sell has earned a margin (a percentage). No one knows the Buy Price but we have a Sell Price and claim to have a Margin.

Story: Any Indian kid with middle school Math background can back-calculate what Buy Price can be. Sell confidently wants to solve for x.
The catch however is, first it is Buy who needs to buy at x, and then that can be sold at a Margin Sell claims to have made, by selling at Sell Price.

Charming side hero Product guy tries to dumb it down for Sell. Regional Sell is a fan of Corporate Product guy. Corporate Product guy is a Marketing person.
To customers- Product guy sells his product as an idea.
To Sell- Product guy sells incentives to sell that idea to those customers.
Product guy is the 'ultimate seller' as he sells selling to Sell.

This time the product to be sold is a product Product guy wants Buy to buy so that Sell can resell. So you calculate Sell Price, and not back-calculate Buy Price.

What if Buy ends up buying it at more than x? The margin then would be less than the Margin Sell is proud to have achieved, because Sell Price has been fixed as sale has been made.

Sell is furious because ultimate seller Product guy is speaking about buy, which is gibberish (and betrayal) to Sell because what is being bought?
"Product guy gives product and I sell". 
"Customers talk about buy and now my Product guy is talking about Buy too. I hate Buy which means Buy department is the villain". 
"I have sold and earned Margin and I deserve incentives, not this questioning from crazy Buy department on what did you sell when no one has bought it". 
"A product-seller is asking for money and Buy is not paying because Buy did not buy. Who is this product-seller? Because I am seller of this product"!

Another work-day ends.

"Proton Girl"

So, some time last year a new app was launched called Slowly. Read about it in the Sunday paper at the time of the launch. It was an app that lets you send messages to random people and is not instant messaging. The time an actual letter would take to reach the recipient is the time a message on Slowly would. Hence the name.

My cousin got her first message from a lady in France for which she had to wait 19 hours. 19 hours later, she received a  French hello. It was funny, after the long wait!

I first received a message from a person who had started learning Spanish. My profile mentioned I know Spanish so maybe that was the reason. So he wrote something in Spanish, and I replied back and it was cool.

But there were many other people who sent messages to which I had no reply.

One was "How can a person be named Electron Gal and still exude so much positivity?" This was the very first and the only text in that chat.

But I am a positive person, or so I have been told by many. With that in mind, and my tendency to be-well- positive, I think that maybe the Slowly guy was not being cheesy after all.

Some of the previous posts have been sad, because they were anecdotes and recent past has been sad. However, that is that.

In the world of sines, I think the trough has passed and now I am moving to the crest of the wave :)